2010

March

NEW COMPOSITION COMPETITION ANNOUNCED

I am very excited to announce a new composition competition that I will be co-hosting this year together with the University of Toronto. Open to all composers, the contest is looking for new works for piano and live electronics. Two winners will be selected (one to be a current student from the University of Toronto), and I will perform both pieces at the University of Toronto's New Music Festival in January 2011. Of these two winners, one will be selected to be included on a forthcoming album: The Electro-Acoustic Piano, vol. 2 (yes, that does mean a volume one is in the works).

The University of Toronto's New Music Festival is a long-standing festival that can safely be counted amongst the best in Canada. This year's festival - of which I was not a part - was a huge success, and they already have Chen Yi lined up to be the guest composer next season. I am anxious to begin reviewing the entries, as I am sure to be introduced to several amazing new composers.

For more information on the competition, visit: keithkirchoff.com/commission.html

Also, please join us on Facebook! To join the "Composition Competition" group, please click here.

ELECTRO-TOUR MOVING EAST

The Electro-Acoustic Piano tour enjoyed a successful first month with four different shows throughout Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and the Bay Area. During March the show is going to Boston, New York, Kansas City, Salt Lake City, Provo, and Tulsa. Check here for dates and times.

SHIAU-UEN DING TO PREMIER PIANO SONATA

Pianist Shiau-uen Ding is set to premier my Piano Sonata on May 26th at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City. It was written as a part of a large commissioning project she did a couple years ago when she asked several composers to write musical responses to Liszt's Dante Sonata. Good luck to Shiau-uen on this recital!

RECOEMENDED LISTENING

Edwin Fischer Plays Schubert

The last several posts have focused on both new cutting edge works that bridge the gaps between rock, jazz, and classical (Zorn & Alasnoaxis), and the work that inspired such artists (Antheil). Thus for this month's column I would like to take a step back to some older music and an older pianist.

Edwin Fischer remains to this day one of my absolute favorite artists. As a pianist he had the most perfect mastery of touch: he not only could control the tone of the piano better than any other pianist alive (then or now), but he had absolute command over every single contrapuntal line. Each line is heard as an independent voice, and each line is given such tender care it is jaw dropping and soul stirring to listen to his work.

With this said, it should come as little surprise that Fischer is most known for his Bach recordings. These are great recordings and in my opinion are the greatest Bach keyboard albums out there (no offense Mr. Gould).

But for this column, I want to focus on one particular album that remains among my top five favorite albums of any genre: Fischer's recording of the Schubert Impromptus.

The pieces themselves are tremendous masterworks: both charming and deep, they are pensive reflections that I consider among the best works of the 19th century. Fischer does more than simply play these works, though, as he presents them in a wholly new way. His warm tone immediately caresses you, and as he intricately weaves each voice through the texture, he holds you captivated.

I have never heard piano playing like this before. This isn't virtuosic playing in the modern sense of the word; he isn't playing dazzling octaves or whipping off lightning fast scales. But what few people today realize is that the level of care and refinement of touch and tone that Fischer brings to the piano is in fact far more virtuosic than any Lang Lang recording. Anyone can play octaves (OK, not anyone), but no other pianist in the age of recordings has ever rivaled Fischer's sound. Take my word for it: playing the piano with an infinite sound palate, applying a different color to each independent simultaneous line (whether melodic or otherwise), and being able to listen and concentrate 100% to each one of those lines at all times may just be the single hardest thing to do in piano playing. No technical etude comes close to that level of difficulty.

These are beautiful works played more beautifully than you will ever hear them again. Treat yourself to a spiritual spa and listen to this album.

January

Happy New Year, everyone! 2010 is officially underway, and the Electro-Acoustic Piano tour is just about ready to roll. All the scores are in, all the gear is purchased, and I'm anxiously looking forward to February 7th.

Shortly before the New Year, I heard the electronics to Christopher Trebue Moore's praya dubia for the first time. And I must say, they are really fabulous. While I certainly had high expectations, I can honestly say his work on this piece has nonetheless exceeded them.

Also in December, Dan VanHassel sent me a new and updated version of his piece, Lush Intrinsic. While the piece was very good before, the new version really blew me away.

But the great music does not stop there; every single piece on this program is of such a high quality, I feel truly honored to have had the opportunity to work so closely with these great composers. Thank you again to each of you!

Aside from my frantic practice schedule, there is little news at the start of the new decade. (No news is good news, right?) However, I am excited to report:

SHIAU-UEN DING TO PREMIER PIANO SONATA

Pianist Shiau-uen Ding is set to premier my Piano Sonata on May 26th at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City. It was written as a part of a large commissioning project she did a couple years ago when she asked several composers to write musical responses to Liszt's Dante Sonata. Good luck to Shiau-uen on this recital!

RECOEMENDED LISTENING

George Antheil: Violin Sonatas 1, 2, & 4
Vera Beths (violin) and Reinbert de Leeuw (piano)

It remains a mystery to me: why are the Antheil violin sonatas not a part of the standard sonata repertoire? I would say that they are "great," but that would only be a gross understatement.

Instead, I will say that the first two sonatas, both included on this recording, are of equal quality to the Ives and, dare I say it?, the Beethoven sonatas.

These pieces have everything: they are virtuosic, satirical, and fun. Yet they are psychologically deep pieces that demand an active listener. They are compositional masterworks that are decades before their time, and the styles embraced in them harkens to the modern-era of industrial music and John Zorn (see my earlier post on Naked City; Zorn owes a great deal of his style to Antheil).

Structurally, the pieces are quite unique. Almost completely bereft of transitions, Antheil gives the listener dozens of short, rhythmically complex, but immediately recognizable musical vignettes that continue to return in various forms throughout the length of the piece. He cuts from one event to the next like a patchwork quilt: there isn't a blending of styles, but from a distance, everything makes perfect sense. One minute, the pianist is banging tonal clusters up and down the length of the instrument, the next the violin is playing a sweet little tune, the next we're listening to ragtime. All this within the span of about five seconds.

While Ballet Mechanique is Antheil's most talked about piece, it is in his first two violin sonatas that he really captures the musical language he was trying to communicate. When they were premiered in the 1920's, they certainly made a splash: no one had ever heard music like that (and for that matter, we haven't since!) and listeners were stunned - and outraged.

But artists took immediate note and his work influenced composers from Ornstein to Nancarrow to Bolcom and writers like Ezra Pound.

There have been pitifully few recordings of his violin sonatas (and to this day, there has still not been a complete recording made - something I've been hoping to rectify for several years), and what few exist lack the sparkle and maniacal wit needed to play these pieces successfully. (Trust me, they don't play themselves!) But Vera Beths and Reinbert de Leeuw nail it. They really, really nail it. They capture the essence of every single measure, jump from idea to idea flawlessly, and are constantly in perfect sync. It is obvious that they play together a lot, and they enjoy every minute of it.

I have been enjoying my recording of these sonatas for several months now (I heard it for the first time in February), and I've planned on including it in this column for about that long. So imagine my surprise when I went to amazon.com for a link and discovered that the disc was out of print. Out of print?! The greatest recording of some of the greatest works for violin no longer available. This is heresy of the highest order.

So as the New Year gets started, I challenge you, dear reader, open your web browser and find a recording of these pieces. And please, find the recording by Vera Beths and Reinbert de Leeuw; don't settle for the one on Naxos (which not only lacks the character of the music, but also is curiously missing about sixty measures of the second sonata), for I can assure you will not understand my enthusiasm if you do. But scour the web and find this album. It was released on the Disques Montaigne label. And you have my promise that every minute it takes to find this record will be well worth the effort.